Holy Koolaid

20 Questions that Flat-Earthers Can’t Answer

In the last couple of years, the flat earth movement has seen a massive resurgence. In an attempt to counter some of the misinformation, I reached out to dozens of science-loving, skeptically-minded YouTubers about joining with me in making a collab video to address this. I offered them a list of questions to choose from, or they could submit their own. 20 of them responded, filmed, and submitted questions. Below are the questions and links to each channel for you to subscribe for more of their excellent.

Cosmic Skeptic: “My question is this to those of you who expect to see some kind of curvature on a globular earth with their eyes, what exact kind of curvature are you expecting to see? If you’re talking about the kind of curvature that goes away from us and over the horizon, then that would be indiscernible. It would look the same as a flat earth, because you can’t see things that are under the horizon. If you’re talking about a kind of curvature where if you were to follow the horizon from left to right, that you would see some kind of curvature downwards, just follow that to its logical conclusion. Do a 360-spin on the spot – where does that horizon end up. It wouldn’t match up to where you started. That makes no sense whatsoever either. Even if you were high enough up to see some kind of curvature, all it would be is looking down and seeing the entire earth beneath you, and any globe from one particular point of view (because of perspective) is indistinguishable from a flat disc. In other words, nobody has ever claimed that the kind of curvature you’re expecting to see is what you would expect to see on a globular earth (or even that it’s possible). Although I will say that it’s a damn sight more possible than a flat earth.”

Suris: “If you honestly want to believe that the earth is flat, I’m not going to stop you. But I would like to ask: if you want to convince any of us (especially those of us that are at least moderately science-minded), can you please provide a working model – a full-scale, working model of the flat earth with accurate predictions and measurements that follow through on that scale. And no, I don’t mean the UN map.”

Rachel Oates: “Why is it that all the other astronomical bodies like other planets, their orbiting moons, the sun, other stars… Why is it that they’re all spherical, and the laws of gravity apply to them, but the earth is somehow the odd one out? What makes it different?”

Professor Stick: “Why do time lapses of stars rotate in different directions in the northern and southern hemispheres fitting perfectly with the perspective we would expect for a rotating round earth?”

Godless Engineer: “If Nasa’s part of a global conspiracy, the earth’s flat, and the moon landings never happened, then how come anybody with a high-powered laser can bounce light off of retroreflectors that the astronauts left on the moon?”

Godless Cranium: “If climate change melts the Antarctic ice wall, will all the water fall off the edge, or will we be swarmed with white walkers?”

Eric Murphy (Talk Heathen): “Why, from the southern hemisphere, do images of the moon appear upside down. And you can verify the change if you drive north and south – traveling – taking pictures of the moon. You can see that change as you move to the other side of the earth. How do flat-earthers explain that?”

Kyle Curtis (The NonSequitur Show): “Did you know, there are over 500 people from 38 countries who have been to space. And that there are 72 different government space agencies, 31 private spaceflight companies, and 24 private endeavors all of which are building rovers, landers, and probes. Now this represents tens if not hundreds of thousands of employees (Nasa alone has 17,000). And they’re all building equipment to meticulous specifications based on universally applicable scientific principles. And this equipment has to travel at mind-numbing speeds. It has to be able to sustain radiation and fluctuations in temperature. On top of that, it has to remain airtight. Are all of them in on it? And if so, how many of them can keep a secret. And if not, how are those at the top managing to fool every single one of their employees?”

Objectively Dan (Epistemic): “If the sun is rotating above the earth in a circle, then how do you explain both solar and lunar eclipses? And if the sun dips below the earth to cast a shadow on the moon, then how come the entire earth is never submerged in darkness at the same time? Instead, it’s daytime in New York when it’s nighttime in New Delhi.”

Steve McRae: “You say that live footage of astronauts is fake because you can’t see stars. But have you ever taken a picture or video of the night sky only to realize that your camera’s sensor just isn’t sensitive enough to capture these dim balls of light without increasing exposure time? Did you ever notice that it’s daytime? The freaking sun is out, of course you can’t see other stars!”

Mr. Atheist: “Additionally, if it is impossible for the earth to be round because we don’t feel it moving at the incredible speed it’s moving, what’s preventing us from feeling the force of the constantly acceleration flat earth as it moves upward? And wouldn’t the sun and all of the other luminaries be having to move at the same rate so as to not either crash into the earth or fly away forever, but why can’t we observe that in any way?”

Bionic Dance: “Why do the stars and constellations we see in the southern hemisphere differ from those we see in the northern hemisphere?”

Shannon Q: “When someone defends the concept of the flat earth, I’ve often heard the argument being made that, ‘I trust my eyes.’ But we know that our eyes can deceive us. If they couldn’t magicians and illusionists wouldn’t have careers. In fact, everything that we do perceive visually comes into our eyes upside down, backwards, and full of holes. It’s our brains that do the hard work of constructing that into what we would call vision. Why would you rely on something as fallible and subjective as visual perception and reject more precise and reliable forms of measurement to make your argument?”

Telltale: “The Soviet Union and the US were enemies during the Cold War, and we both had space programs. If one side claims the earth was round, and they were wrong, why wouldn’t the other expose them?”

Frank Wolf: “If the sun and moon aren’t dropping below a horizon but just getting further away, then why don’t they get all tiny just before night, and why aren’t they absolutely gigantic when they’re right overhead?”

Paulogia: “Most astronauts were Christians, including the Apollo 8 astronauts who read from the book of Genesis while orbiting the moon and Buzz Aldrin who took communion before setting foot on the moon? If the round earth is a Satanic conspiracy, why aren’t these Christian astronauts exposing it?”

Lloyd Evans: “Better yet, if it’s a Satanic conspiracy, why is it that the discoveries about the true nature of our planet and its place in the cosmos made by Nicholas Copernicus, Galileo, Hubble, and Newton – were all by devoutly religious Christians?”

Alex Legends (Emperor Atheist): “According to your model, is the moon a disc, an ethereal light, a projection, or a hologram? And in half of all flat earth models, you have Australia all scrunched and wider than North America? How come flat-earthers can’t seem to agree on one model?”

Seth Andrews (Host of The Thinking Atheist): “One of the best arguments I had heard against flat-earthers came from astrophysicist Dan Batcheldor. In order for the flat earth theory to be correct, it would not only involve a conspiracy of world governments, and the airline industry, and every nation’s space program, and you know the makers and operators of all the satellites – not only them – but it would also require a conspiracy within the flat earth movement itself. Because if you had one flat-earther located in New York, and another one located in Los Angeles, and you were to ask both of them about the current altitude of the sun, the flat-earther in Los Angeles would essentially have to lie to the flat-earther in New York for the numbers to match up. So even within the movement itself, the flat earth movement, it simply makes no sense.”

Bonus Question: Why do objects weigh .35% less at the equator than at the poles? This makes sense with centrifugal force on a spinning round globe, but not in a flat earth model.